Talk:Cadmus

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[edit] Kadmos and Europe

Kadmos was the brother of Europa. This lady let herself be abducted by the god Zeus, who took her from the coast of present day Syria & Lebanon (Cadmus is tawn in Syria near Latakia) to the island of Crete. Kadmos went in search of his sister, but never found her. He arrived at Central Greece where he fought a dragon and founded the city of Thebes. The teeth of the dragon he slayed changed into warriors. Kadmos took a number of these into his service. They became the first aristocracy in Europe. Their position was not due to kinship but to service and loyalty vis à vis government authority. Kadmos and his warriors were the beginning of Western strength.

- User:TorbenHansen.dk

(Cadmus' myth is set in the Mycenaean age, but the alphabet arrived in the eighth century. The Minoans seem to have had an aristocracy from the first palace period in the mid second millennium. ) --Wetman 07:54, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cadmus and cadmium

Is it true that the chemical element cadmium is named after Cadmus ? Jay 17:19, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yes, it's right.
--IonnKorr 12:54, 2 November 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Temple

Where it says "a temple to the moon-goddess (Semele) was erected," wasn't Semele the daughter of Cadmus? I believe the proper name is Cybele, but I'm not sure. ~9:16 PM, 12 Dec 2004

In Greek mythology, the moon-goddess of the Titanic order of gods was Selene, a daughter of Hyperion. She was supplanted by Artemis. Semele is wrong in any event; she was a mortal the mother of Dionysius. Ellsworth 21:12, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Cadmus and Phoenicia

Was Cadmus a Phoenician?

- Phoenicians emerged, in history, at beginning of first millennium (or even one century before).

- Cadmus might found Thebae of Boeotia about 16th, or 15th or 14th century B.C.

There is a gap. Consequently ...?

--IonnKorr 12:36, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Your dates for Cadmus are about as accurate as one could hope for in mythology. --Wetman 09:03, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Someone has deleted, following the phrase "Cadmus was credited by the Hellenes with the introduction of the Phoenician alphabet," the explanatory phrase "which were not historically used in Greece until centuries after his age'". I'm not likely to be confused, but perhaps the average reader might need some explication after all. What do you folks think? --09:03, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
But "centuries after his age" is meaningless, because these are mythical events - so no one can say when "his age" was, let alone precisely how long ago Phoenician letters came to be used in Greece or by whom they were introduced. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 22:10, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, but surely we can all agree that the introduction of the alphabet in mainland Greece postdated the setting of the myth of Cadmus, which, inasmuch as it is the founding myth of Thebes, lay previous even to the Trojan War, agreed to be pre-literate. Any statement of this relative sequence in some way that will be meaningful to the reader, whose sense of sequence may be vague, will certainly be acceptable to me, for one. --Wetman 04:27, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if we can assume anything like that... The way I figure, somebody had to have introduced Phoenician letters. We don't know who (or how, or when), and the only name we have to go on is Cadmus, about whom many things are said ranging from the obviously mythical circumstances, to the sources like Herodotus that at least sound plausible. The person responsible for their introduction to Greece may as well have been named Cadmus, but if not, then he was named something else. But there is no doubt that the innovation was directly copied or adapted from Phoenician letters, at some point in time. I have seen that there is really not unanimous agreement as to when it happened, though. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 04:37, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Substitute CDM for "Cadmus" and simply apply logic to determine the relative sequence of events: Founding of Thebes predates Trojan War, because Thebans took part. Trojan War is pre-literate, from internal evidence in Iliad. Therefore, as I said, the introduction of the alphabet in mainland Greece postdates the setting of the myth of CDM, which is the founding myth of Thebes. How could there be a problem with that? The conclusion suggests that there would be a pre-literate stratum of the Cadmeia at Thebes, and there is. The "somebody" is discussed in Walter Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution: literacy explodes within a few decades after 750 BCE. "The earliest Greek letters recognized to date originate in Naxos, Ischia, Athens, and Euboea, and appear arround or a little before 750" (Burkert p 26, noting the inscribed Dipylon jug at Athens, the Ischia inscription on the "cup of Nestor", a geometric period shard from Naxos and some Euboean material). That was a groundbreaking book in 1992. Thus the original text:
"Cadmus was credited by the Hellenes with the introduction of the Phoenician alphabet, which was not historically used in Greece until centuries after his age."

"His age" in this sentence means "before the Trojan War". All irrefutable. Perhaps it's not generally understood that an exaggerated antiquity is usually ascribed to oral legends placed in a distant past. All this, because someone thoughtlessly deleted the statement. --Wetman 07:54, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Cadmus' mythological chronology

So I'm not quite sure how to go about figuring this one out...the page does not cite sources well at all so fact-checking is a little difficult. Anyway, the story in this article goes that Cadmus slays the dragon and immediately thereafter pays penance to Ares and is given Harmonia as his wife. The story presented here makes both Dionysus, who is the son of Semele, and Pentheus, son of Agave, the great-grandsons of Ares, but this is clearly not the case in Euripides' Bacchae or in any other source I've come across so far. In that play, it is only after the death of Pentheus and the exile of Cadmus and his daughters from Thebes that Cadmus comes to wed Harmonia. Can anyone offer any help with this? Ben iarwain 05:44, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

ok, learned that the theogony ll. 975-978 (And Harmonia, the daughter of golden Aphrodite, bare to Cadmus Ino and Semele and fair-cheeked Agave and Autonoe whom long haired Aristaeus wedded, and Polydorus also in rich- crowned Thebe.) supports the version in this article, but continue to wonder, then, about Euripides' changes to the story. suggestions? --Ben iarwain 05:44, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Euripedes is notorious for his adjusting myth to purposes of tragedy. Genealogies in Greek myth are rarely coherent: there are 'two' genealogies for Jesus of Nazareth. The habit of critical comparisons that comes so instinctively to us is a habit born of literacy, of comparing writings rather than living in the narrative moment, according to the Canadian Eric A. Havelock. --Wetman 07:54, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd be interested to see evidence of other instances in which Euripides adjusts myth so readily. What struck me as especially curious is that this is, as far as I can tell, the only mention of this tradition. Of course there are always variant traditions, but in those cases there are often, I've found (as in the case of Diodorus Siculus when discussing the geneologies of the gods, especially Dionysus), at least acknowledgements of various traditions in the primary sources. Of course, there's no accounting for what we DON'T have - which texts, I mean. In any event, I mean to say that while I can see where you're coming from with your notion of critical comparison being born of literacy, I don't understand what to do with it in a case like this where we are dealing with wholly literate people. --Ben iarwain 08:58, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I have added an {{Unreferenced}} tag to this article. A number of arternative geneologies and chronologies are presented here, especially with regard to Cadmus' marriage to Harmonia, where he met her, etc., and yet there is not a single primary source cited. I am doing some work on this matter right now and will be adding the appropriate citations and primary source references as I come across them, for this article, as is (offering no references other than "see the Encyc. Brit. 1911"), is of very little use to anyone with a serious interest in sorting out the issues of chronology and geneology. I have added the same tag and similar comments to the article on Harmonia, so if there's anyone out there interested in taking on this project with me, I'd welcome the help! Thanks! --Ben iarwain 06:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

If the paragraphs or sections are to be arranged thematically, i.e. "Founding Thebes" "Transformation" etc, I can help. If a "biography" is being constructed, I can't. Too bad about that "unreferenced" tag: the cure is references, not tags. --Wetman 11:59, 27 November 2006 (UTC)